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An Australian married couple has told Pope Francis and bishops at the synod on the family that Catholic parishes should welcome gay couples.
Ron and Mavis Pirola, who have been married for more than 50 years, told the synod how friends of theirs welcomed their gay son and his partner one Christmas.
“The Church constantly faces the tension of upholding the truth while expressing compassion and mercy. Families face this tension all the time,” the Pirolas of Sydney told the synod on October 6.
“Take homosexuality as an example. Friends of ours were planning their Christmas family gathering when their gay son said he wanted to bring his partner home, too.
“They fully believed in the Church’s teachings and they knew their grandchildren would see them welcome the son and his partner into the family. Their response could be summed up in three [sic] words, ‘He is our son’.”
“What a model of evangelisation for parishes as they respond to similar situations in their neighbourhood,” the Pirolas said.
The couple, who are participating in the synod as non-voting auditors, are former members of the Pontifical Council for the Family, and run the Australian Catholic Marriage and Family Council.
Married with four children and eight grandchildren, the couple spoke about how important faith had been to their marriage.
But they said that Church documents on the matter seemed to be from “another planet” and were not relevant to their experiences.
The couple called for emphasising the positive dimensions of Catholic teaching on sexuality.
On Humanae Vitae – Pope Paul VI’s encyclical that re-iterated the Church’s ban on artificial contraception – the couple said there was a need for married couples to connect sexual intimacy with spirituality.
“We believe that until married couples come to reverence sexual union as an essential part of their spirituality it is extremely hard to appreciate the beauty of teachings such as those of Humanae Vitae.
“We need new ways and relatable language to touch people’s hearts,” they said.
The couple told the synod members that sexual attraction brought them together 57 years ago and sex had helped keep them married for 55 years.
“Gradually we came to see that the only feature that distinguishes our sacramental relationship from that of any other good Christ-centred relationship is sexual intimacy, and that marriage is a sexual sacrament with its fullest expression in sexual intercourse.”
Sources
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News category: World.
